I see more and more often that people post bit.ly links here. Please don't. First and foremost — it hides the real URL, so I don't know where I am sent to. Second: you force me to use a service that collects, aggregates and shares data on who clicks what when, which I consider very bad practice. Finally, no matter how long your URL is, it only counts as 23 characters in your post, so no need to "shorten" links [1]

TL;DR post real links and don't spy on me. #kthxbai

[1] https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/posting/#:~:text=All%20links%20are%20counted%20as,link%20shortener%20to%20save%20characters.

Posting to your profile - Mastodon documentation

Sharing your thoughts has never been more convenient.

@jwildeboer this is a fair concept. However, for those of us who use a client like tweesecake, it does not shorten our URL's when we type them, and if we go over our character limit, the client simply will not allow us to send the post, even if, when shortened, the URL's would make a post which is within the character limit.